Judith
Levine
has written on many subjects with candor and incisive analysis.
When
she ventured into the ideologically charged realm of youthful sexual
experience,
she found that candor was not appreciated and any thoughtful analysis
would
be considered subversive.

When
political
science professor Harris Mirkin observed a trend in sexual politics, he
found some politicians were more than happy to illustrate his point.

Due at least in
part to
the on-going brouhaha over sex scandals in the Catholic church, both an
article and a recent book have attracted extra attention by elected
officials
and morality doyens who argue that works such as these and the
Rind report give aid and comfort to "pedophiles" and therefore must
be vilified and suppressed regardless of truth.

The recent book is Judith Levine’s Harmful
to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, which argues
that young Americans, though bombarded with sexual images from the mass
media, are often deprived of realistic advice about sex.

Writes Levine in her introduction, “In
America
today, it is nearly impossible to publish a book that says children and
teenagers can have sexual pleasure and be safe too.”

Levine argues that abstinence-only sex
education
is misguided. She also suggests the threat of molestation by
strangers
is exaggerated by adults who want to deny young people the opportunity
for positive sexual experiences.

“Squeamish or ignorant about the facts,
parents
appear willing to accept the pundits’ worst conjectures about their
children’s
sexual motives,” Levine writes. “It’s as if they cannot imagine
that
their kids seek sex for the same reasons they do.”

Publisher after publisher rejected the
book
-- one called its contents “radioactive” — before the University of
Minnesota
Press accepted the manuscript a year ago.

“What’s happening to me is a perfect
example
of the very hysteria that my book is about,” the New York-based author
said.

Several conservative media commentators
and
activists have accused Levine of condoning child abuse.

The furor over Harmful to Minors
began
when conservative radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger denounced the
book on air. An associate of Schlessinger’s, Judith Reisman (the
infamous pornography “expert” from the Meese Commission anti-porn
hearings
of 1986, whose qualifications at the time were that she had written
songs
for the Captain Kangaroo show), had brought the book to Schlessinger’s
attention, claiming that Levine was another in a long line of “academic
pedophiles,” who were trying to make pedophilia more acceptable.

Reisman also alerted Robert Knight,
director
of the Culture and Family Institute at Concerned Women for America
(which
takes its guidance from God and the Bible.) He called the book “very
evil,”
and launched a campaign on the CWFA Web site, asking Minnesota
Gov.
Jesse Ventura to halt publication of the book because it had been
published
under the auspices of the University of Minnesota and asking the
University
to fire the university press officials who decided to publish the book.

“The action is so grievous and so
irresponsible
that I felt they relinquished their right to academic freedom,” said
Knight.
“The book makes a case for pedophilia.” “I have not read it cover to
cover,
but I am familiar with its themes. She is drawing on quack
science.
It gives a scientific gloss to the arguments that child molesters use.”

“There’s nothing new here,” said Judith
Reisman.
“This has been on the back burner for quite some time. The Kinsey
Institute is preparing to release a series of documents on child
sexuality,
a whole new look from not a negative but from a positive perspective.”
(In Ms. Reisman’s world any academic material which contradicts
her
viewpoint is somehow tied into the vast conspiracy of the Kinsey
Institute)

According to occasional Time
correspondent
John Leo, Harmful to Minors is a classic example of how
disorder
(read: disobedience) in the intellectual world leaks into the popular
culture.
In this case, he believes the leak started with the
so-called Rind study, which caused a national furor after it appeared
in
1998 in the Psychological Bulletin, a publication of the
American
Psychological Association. According to Leo, the Rind study is
the
new bible of pedophiles and their groups. He quotes Paul Fink,
past
president of the American Psychiatric Association, as saying: “Our
major
task is trying to figure out how to stop this nonsense, this justifying
and encouraging adult-child sexual behavior.”

In fact, nothing in Levine’s book
suggests
that the author condones pedophilia. (“No sane person would
advocate
pedophilia,” she said in her interview with Salon.) And, as it
turns
out, Reisman and Knight have both admitted that they hadn’t actually
read
much of Levine’s book before they decided to campaign against it.
(Reisman told the New York Times, “It doesn’t take a great deal
to understand the position of the writer. I didn’t read ‘Mein
Kampf’
for many years, but I knew the position of the author,” while Knight
told
the same reporter that he had “thumbed through” the book.)

Also under attack
is an
article published in 1999 by professor Harris Mirkin. The
article,
“The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and
Pedophilia,”
was published in the Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 37,
no.
2, 1999, p. 1-24. The abstract is as follows:

Until recently sex and gender
issues
were thought to be biological or natural rather than political.
The
feminist movement largely changed perceptions of gender, and the gay
and
lesbian movements significantly altered conceptions of sex, so that
what
were once seen as permanent moral standards are now viewed as
historical
and political constructions. As views of these groups have moved
towards social constructionism, perceptions of child sexuality have
become
more absolutist. Current attitudes towards child sexuality and
representations
of it resemble historical attitudes towards women and
homosexuals.
This article argues that there is a two-phase pattern of sexual
politics.
The first is a battle to prevent the battle, to keep the issue from
being
seen as political and negotiable. Psychological and moral
categories
are used to justify ridicule and preclude any discussions of the issue,
and standard Constitutional guarantees are seen as irrelevant.
The
second phase more closely resembles traditional politics as different
groups
argue over rights and privileges. Feminist and gay/lesbian
politics
have recently entered the second phase, while pedophilia is in the
first.

According to the Kansas City Star, the
University of Missouri-Kansas City political scientist’s scribblings
cost
his college $100,000 during April’s state budget process, after it
received
negative publicity in the wake of the controversey over Levine’s
book.
The symbolic $100,000 was part of an $8 million reduction in the
University’s
annual budget.

Mirkin is unfazed by such legislative
symbolism,
telling The New York Times that his article in the Journal
of
Homosexuality was “meant to be subversive...to make people think”;
among other things, the article notes that, “Though Americans consider
intergenerational sex to be evil, it has been permissible or obligatory
in many cultures and periods of history.” Further on in the interview,
the 65-year-old grandfather insists that incest and rape are always
wrong
and that priests and teachers “who touched children were abusing their
authority.” But he worries that the current “panic over pedophilia
fit[s]
a pattern of public response to female sexuality and homosexuality,
both
of which were once considered deviant.”

In the article, an 18-page essay with 38
footnotes,
Dr. Mirkin argued that the notion of the innocent child was a
social
construct, that all intergenerational sex should not be lumped “into
one
ugly pile.”

Early in April the State House of
Representatives
voted 102 to 29 to cut an additional $100,000 from the Kansas City
campus’s
$78 million appropriation. Later the State Senate did the same,
19
to 12. The office of Gov. Bob Holden said he had not yet
taken
a position on the cut as of the end of April.

“The goal is that the taxpayers not
subsidize
this guy’s attempt to legitimize a despicable behavior and a dangerous
behavior,” said State Senator John Loudon, a Republican from the
St.
Louis suburbs. “We all respect academic freedom.
Legitimizing
molestation doesn’t fall under academic freedom.”

In the legislative debate, Representative
Don
Lograsso, a Republican, said Dr. Mirkin should be reprimanded or
fired.
“Sex between adults and children is not acceptable.”

Take note of the recurring, aggressive
dishonesty
in these criticisms: claiming that some things are simply beyond
discussion,
confusing a challenge to preconceptions with a wholesale endorsement of
pedophilia, attacking something (usually the Rind report) other than
the
work under discussion, talking about feelings of disgust &
revulsion
with nary an objective fact in sight, and criticizing a work you have
not
even read. These are not techniques designed to get to the
truth.
They are clever ways to stifle dissent. The problem is that they
never really work.

Centuries ago, the scientist Galileo was
tried
for heresy by the church and forced to recant his belief in the idea
that
the earth was not the center of the universe. To hold such
beliefs
was to challenge the bible and the teachings of Aristotle – two
important
pillars of the church’s authority. As he left the proceedings he
was said to have muttered “Eppur si muove!” – It still moves. No
matter how hard the church tried it failed to prevent the universal
rejection
of geocentrism. Let us pray that the ideologues of today will be
equally as successful.